♪ opening music ♪ <Jim> From caring cyclists to pioneering pollinators, how inspiration and collaboration can shift mindsets and expand ripples of change.

<Matt> Why isn't food still the most important thing in their life?

Because it's affecting their health and how they live on a daily basis.

♪ <Jim> In this episode of The Food Principle... ♪ For 20 years, I've used food as a catalyst to connect travelers with local culture around the world.

Yet food does even more than connect us.

It also plays a pivotal role in some of our greatest challenges.

♪ Now I'm on a quest to learn from leaders in the vanguard of these battles.

♪ All using the power of food to plant a better planet.

♪ I'm Jim Kane, and this is The Food Principle.

♪ I'd come to Denmark to learn about samfundssind, a word that expresses a deeply ingrained social consciousness in Danish society.

My world class guides had shown me how food was an ideal way to see this community spirit in action.

Before long, I began to see samfundssind express itself in many ways.

♪ You know you've stumbled onto something delightful upon hearing the motto, "The right to wind in your hair."

This is definitely the case with Cycling Without Age, and it's disarming founder, Ole Kassow.

♪ C.W.A.

pairs volunteer bike pilots with nursing home residents and in doing so brings joy and connection to both.

I know you've gone on so many rides it's probably hard to pick one day, but describe a typical day.

<Ole> It's usually just a matter of sitting down, having a conversation and then figuring out who wants to go for a bike ride.

Sometimes that involves taking several bike rides and maybe going into the park, or into the city center, or along the waterfront.

So we have this motto which is, "The right to wind in your hair."

So it's also just a matter of feeling your surroundings, using our senses.

I can feel the difference for my passengers and my friends when I go out that when they come back, I can sometimes pick up someone who may have had a slow start to the day, or may be a little bit depressed, and when they come back their mood is completely different.

I think that makes all the difference.

That's what I love about this.

<Jim> Yeah.

Ole agreed to train me as a pilot and invited a couple of friends for a ride and a home cooked meal at his and his partner Pernille's place.

As for ingredients, just a few kilometers away was Ostergro, a rooftop educational farm co-founded by Livia Haaland, one of the dynamic young leaders of Copenhagen's local food movement.

The one hitch we didn't count on was Inge seeing me train.

When she realized it was my first time piloting, she threatened to switch places if I didn't make her feel safe.

In the end, we all had a blast, as much due to Pernille keeping Inge entertained as my piloting.

Before long, we were laughing and sharing stories like old friends.

During these rides together, I know that one of the things you say is often fun to do is grab a coffee or an ice cream with someone.

Why is it that food is such a catalyst for connection?

<Ole> It's oftentimes not necessarily the kind of food, but the fact that when food or drinks are being served or you make it together then you create this setting where bonding appears.

So the ride there is obviously, that's where we have all the adventure, but the coffee or the cake or the meal we're going to be sharing is the purpose.

And that's also where we sit and have a lot of these conversations and we get to know each other.

We tell each other stories.

I think it has the potential.

And I see it all the time, it ties people together.

♪ <Jim> Oh, the herbs from the garden.

Beautiful.

This is the one we were rubbing the other day.

<Ole> Exactly, yeah.

So the rosemary, the wood sorrel, the tarragon, the red basil, and there's a bit of lemon thyme as well.

< Mmm!

> <Jim> With the ice broken, Ole and Panila's kitchen turned into a big family affair with everyone chopping, grating, stirring, sauteing, or baking.

All while sharing nibbles, whiffs, and sips until it was time to sit down and eat.

♪ <Ole> Cutlery and wine.

<Jim> We're ready.

<Ole> We've kind of become accustomed to looking at elderly people as sad people, people who have no joy left in their lives.

And we can produce situations and pictures of elders smiling and laughing, and telling stories, and bonding and meeting new friends and so on.

So I think it's people want to be part of that and they want to see if they can play a role in that.

I think when you speak to a lot of those volunteers, they will say that the first time that they saw an emotional reaction from their passengers is that defining moment- Where they feel that we're onto something here.

Volunteers, or pilots as we call them, are just as important as the passengers.

There's no difference because they both get something out of it.

And I think that's actually important because it means this isn't just trying to help someone.

This is also actually helping yourself.

There are two parties involved here and they each get something out of it.

<Jim> Nowhere have I seen a stronger connection between people and bikes than in Denmark.

As my friend Ole would say, "Bikes are like an extension of the body for Danes.

Children learn to ride at the same time they learn to walk.

And Danes bike on a daily basis throughout their lives until age or mobility loss make it no longer possible."

What did first inspire you to, with the idea to start Cycling Without Age, maybe before you even had a name for it?

<Ole> Well, I think it must be the time when I was riding my bike to work and I noticed this old man sitting on a bench.

And I just immediately felt the connection.

My dad had passed away many years before that, but somehow he reminded me of my dad sitting there with a walking frame.

So I realized that he was fairly limited in his mobility, just like my dad.

He was a busy man.

And he taught me how to ride a bike, but then he got sick.

He got M.S.

when I was about four years old, and within a couple of years he was in a wheelchair.

♪ So it obviously it changed our relationship profoundly because he would be back home when I was coming home from school.

And I would sometimes ride my bike and just pull his wheelchair along.

Other times I would push his wheelchair, but I became his legs.

And I became his access to our local community.

All the things that he used to be able to do on his own, suddenly he was relying on me to help him.

And I think sometimes you get the inspiration to do just one thing for another person, just like a random act of kindness.

So I spent some time thinking about what I could do.

And then I showed up at the local care home with a rented rickshaw, trishaw, and offered my services, my companionship, and my legs because I knew how much that meant to my dad.

And then basically it just started with just one ride and then another ride and another ride.

♪ <Jim> When did it go from just volunteering and a hobby for you to an organization and sort of movement that started to take off?

<Ole> It was probably after about, I'd say, a year or something like that.

The first six months, it was pretty much myself.

Then we got some funding for some trishaws.

We were able to extend it to more care homes.

That was when I started to think about how can we scale this?

How can we mobilize more people?

Because I knew how much joy I received from those rides.

And I'd already obviously heard from lots of friends who'd seen, I'd posted a couple of pictures on social media.

And they said, can we join?

Is there any way that I can join the next time you want to go out?

So I was starting to just train some people and get them out riding.

It was because I wanted to see if I could increase the quality of life for those people because I realized as well, when I was a student I worked in a care home.

And I know the staff are busy.

It also means that very often elders get stuck inside.

They don't really get to go outside and experience the city and meet their old friends, or go shopping, or whatever they might want to do.

So I think probably after about a year, I realized there was something about it.

But whether that could work outside of Copenhagen, the city of cyclists, I had no idea.

<Jim> Yeah.

Work out it did.

Since that first ride, C.W.A.

has grown into a global organization, represented in 51 countries with 35,000 trained volunteers and 2,500 chapters.

One of the things you and I talked about the first time we met and it really struck me was you said that one of your hopes was a mind shift in a way of thinking.

<Yeah> What did you mean by that?

<Ole> Well, I think we do have a tendency in our society to really just think about ourselves and not really think about what we can do for other people.

We're all looking for something, a way that we can change the world to a better place.

And it may sound like a grand idea, but I think fundamentally we can all do it with just tiny little things.

And I believe in the small things.

Even just that first ride did, it could have stopped there, but it would've still made a difference to the first person I rode with as it did to me.

So, I'm hoping that what we do can help inspire people to just do little positive things that will give themselves a purpose in life.

And it will actually ultimately inspire more people and create a better world.

<Jim> This idea of expanding ripples of impact drives another of my samfundssind sherpa's, Chef Matt Orlando.

When Matt opened Amass in Refshaleoøen in 2013, this former shipyard was a decrepit industrial wasteland pockmarked by time and the elements.

But Matt saw potential.

It was a clean slate in the heart of a crowded city where a garden could grow.

<Matt> We came out here eight years ago.

And at that point, even the taxi drivers were telling the guests that were coming out here it's a mistake.

There's no restaurant out there.

You don't ... and it was sketchy out here.

There was definitely weird stuff happening here at night.

I remember multiple times, some dudes would pull up in a car right in front of the window.

We'd have a full dining room.

They'd pull up right in front of the window and they would get out and they would just sit against the window smoking joints.

And it's not dudes you tell to leave.

It's dudes you go out and give some sandwiches too or something.

But that was part of being in this new area.

And then something happened about three years ago.

And people started to look at this island as opportunity still within Copenhagen.

You can literally spend all day out here.

You can go to Empirical, have a tasting.

Go have a beer, get some snacks.

Go to La Banchina, have a bottle of wine.

Come over here and have dinner.

<Jim> Yeah.

There's this beautiful ecosystem of food, activists, and people passionate about different parts of the food system.

Take me through some of the collaborations that you've done.

<Matt> So, the first collaboration we really had was with Lille.

We started to take their day-old bread that they couldn't sell and actually turn it into ice cream and different things.

And then we've just always kind of done little things here and there with them and helped them promote the farmer's market.

And then Empirical opened up down the road, and Lars and Mark Emil and myself, all of us come from Noma.

So we had this connection there, this creative kind of mindset.

The biggest collaboration that's public knowledge is we did this large amounts of bread ice cream, or they brewed the bread syrup out a spent bread or surplus bread, and we did this project where we created 15,500 ice cream bars out of surplus bread.

< crinkling paper sound > <Jim> Oh, thank you.

<Matt> There you are.

You're welcome.

We dip it in chocolate.

We toast breadcrumbs and kind of enrobe them in the chocolate- <Jim> Oh, nice.

<Matt> As well.

In the center there's a bit of caramel.

<Jim> I'm already digging in.

Is that all right?

<Matt> Dude, don't wait.

Don't wait.

< crinkling paper sound > Then La Banchina, it's a destination for tourists.

It's a cafe on a dock.

But it's so special, the area is so special.

Christer is militant in his sustainability efforts, as we are.

And so Christer and I collaborate constantly about, okay, we're doing this or we found this hundred percent compostable bag here, check them out.

And so there's this exchange of information from a sustainability standpoint that Christer and I are constantly sharing.

And then the most recent collaboration out here, which has been really exciting, and it's kind of been in the works for the last couple years.

To see it come to fruition has been really interesting, is Oens Have.

So right across the street from Amass there's been this big grass field that's just been sitting there.

That grass field was actually where the canteen was for the shipyard.

So they came in and they reclaimed the land.

And they're building the largest urban farm in Northern Europe.

They're growing vegetables.

They're growing mushrooms.

And to have a restaurant literally 10 meters away from that is like, it's amazing.

<Matt> I didn't want to push them into anything.

I was just like a kid waiting, like okay, when, when, when.

And finally, it's only the last couple weeks that Livia I have been really talking about, okay, what can you take?

Let's set up a system where you can come through and check what we have.

And then Bygaard, the ones that are part of Oens Have, they are growing mushrooms.

And Lasse, the founder of Bygaard, actually has been involved with Amass since almost day one.

He helped us build the greenhouse outside.

<Jim> Oh, nice.

<Matt> He's helped us set up systems in a garden.

He's very familiar with Amass and our ethos and how that's going.

So when he moved in across the way with Oens Have, I was like, man, this is really coming full circle.

It's been really interesting.

<Jim> I've seen some of that most recent collaboration you were talking about the last couple weeks with Livia.

<Matt> Yeah.

<Jim> It's been super exciting for me.

I've been lucky enough to have seen some of that blossom in real time.

<Matt> Yeah.

<Jim> It's been really exciting.

I can get a sense of how you feel about that.

♪ <Matt> So bread that we collected this morning from Lille.

We just cut it up, let it dry out a little bit.

Because the less moisture that's present in it, the faster the process goes.

<Matt> So we're just going to take this bread.

We're going to put it into a pan.

Then we're going to add water to it.

We're going to bring this mixture up to certain temperatures for certain amounts of time.

And this process takes about four hours.

We've now over a period of time extracted.

So what we'll do is we're going to strain the bread out.

♪ And all this leftover bread gets actually used to make crisps.

So it gets pureed.

Starch gets added to it.

It gets dried, fried, and it puffs like pork skins.

So now we have our sugar liquid.

When you reduce this, you also have to be really careful because as the sugars start to concentrate, you have to turn the heat down.

When we make a big batch of this, when we're making 50 liters of it, it is a two day process of like 10 hours each day.

<Jim> With eyes, constant eyes on it.

<Matt> Constantly on it, yeah.

Constantly measuring the sugar content, constantly.

Because if you take a two day process and then burn it at the very end, you don't want to be that guy.

So we're going to take our base bread syrup that we reduced.

We're going to add milk.

So this is cooled down.

We're going to put this into the Pacojet beaker.

All right, so we're going to take this base.

We're going to put it in the freezer, let it freeze to a solid block.

Then we're going to spin it and then we're going to make a dessert.

<Jim> Sounds great.

♪ <Matt> Because the ice cream is quite savory, we're going to add a caramel.

This caramel is made of a miso that is made out of spent bread.

We are also going to use breadcrumbs, also from the same bread that we made the ice cream out of, slightly toasted.

So another salty aspect of the equation here.

The fennel flowers from the garden right now, they're so sweet and so anisey, and that anise flavor ties into the bread, this kind of yeasty bread flavor.

There it is.

Something made up entirely of surplus bread from our neighbors next door, Lille.

<Jim> Now you're all about reducing food waste.

So I don't think we can let that go to waste.

<Matt> Absolutely not.

I'm with you.

Right from the center.

<Jim> Down here.

<Matt> Yeah, right from the center.

<Jim> Down here.

Cool.

<Matt> Don't be shy on the caramel.

<Jim> Okay.

I'm going to get a big mouthful.

<Matt> Do it, do it.

<Jim> Yes.

♪ The fennel is incredible on that.

It's amazing.

<Matt> It is.

It kind of cleans you at the end.

<Jim> Yeah, it really does.

I'm diving in.

<Matt> Do it.

All of it.

<Matt> It's taken us eight years to get where we are.

We've won the Most Sustainable Restaurant Scandinavia the last two years in a row.

That is not something that happens overnight.

It has to be kind of an organic process to understand your ecosystem and how you engage it in this responsible way.

The physical action of fermenting kale stems and turning them into something that tastes like seaweed, that's the easiest part of the equation.

It's the mindset that you have to, it's this cultural shift within your walls that you have to do to make people aware.

If you're operating within this sphere, there's this sense of community.

I am contacted, and I also contact myself, any business that is operating with this mindset because we can all learn from each other.

You also become part of a smaller community within the restaurant industry of like-minded people.

<Jim> A lot of people are going to be watching this and they're going to be very inspired by the work, you and your team, and your collaborators, and the ecosystems are doing here.

What if someone's watching this and they say, gosh, what can I do?

It seems so big.

<Matt> I think the biggest thing is gaining knowledge.

You have to make the effort to do research and understand what you're doing.

Another piece of advice I will give is don't try to do too many things at once.

Make a list, prioritize a list, put it on your refrigerator, put it on your laptop, put it on your notes.

And then just chip away one.

Master, okay, coffee grounds.

I'm going to master coffee grounds.

I'm going to master coffee grounds to the point where I don't even have to think about it anymore.

It's just, I look at it and there's potential in it.

Once you've done that, move to your next.

Because if you try to do multiple things at one time, then you are basically going to do everything about 80 percent, and get frustrated and then you're just going to stop.

So just focus on one thing, make that a win.

Go to the next one, make that a win.

Before you know it, you have 10 wins.

Then you have momentum in that direction.

By that time, your brain will have just naturally switched to operate within this mindset.

And it becomes second nature.

<Jim> In your mind, what's going to drive the conversation about food, not only here in Copenhagen, but around the globe, maybe for the next 10 or 15 years?

<Matt> I think within responsibility and sustainability, we need to get past that point where people are just using it as a catch word.

And we need to be able to call (censored) on those people that are using it to greenwash themselves from a branding purpose solely.

If you're going to go down this path and work in this way, you need to walk the walk.

<Jim> You've obviously decided to walk down this path.

You've referred to food is life and life is food.

Why is food such a powerful vehicle for this change, for this path?

<Matt> I just had this conversation with my wife.

<Jim> Yeah.

<Matt> And I said to her, I said, there's so many things in peoples' lives that are so important.

For me, it's hard to understand that because food is, my life evolves around food.

And it directly affects our health.

And there's so many new studies about nutrition and our guts, and how food is medicine.

Why isn't this the most important thing being talked about in the world right now?

Why isn't the average person who is an accountant or a lawyer, why isn't food still the most important thing in their life because it's affecting their health in how they live on a daily basis.

<Jim> And I think as well that not only a person's health and performance and there are these invisible threads that connect food to almost everything, biodiversity, habitat loss and biodiversity, climate change, social inclusion and ... <Matt> Food is the mycelium that connects society and nature and everything on Earth.

Everything living on Earth eats.

Whether you're a sentient being or a non-sentient being, you still have to eat something.

So yeah, why isn't this, why aren't we talking about this more?

♪ <Jim> As samfundssind makes so clear, we're all part of the same ecosystem, as connected to the neighbor in the care home down the street as to the child of the stranger we'll likely never meet.

♪ <Jim> By having a purpose and doing small positive things for others, we'll end up planting a better planet.

One we'll be proud to have our children care for and share with theirs.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪